My husband and I were in a long-distance relationship for almost a full year before we got married. Skype was both a blessing and a curse, offering the illusion of the one you love sitting across from you. You can see, you can hear, but you’re still too far away for a hug. It was tough, I won’t lie. There were many days when I just wanted to hold his hand or sit next to him and do nothing else at all.

Being gay isn’t easy. It becomes even more difficult when you live in a conservative country. I was born and raised in Manila but studied high school and some college in the United States. Since moving back to my homeland, I had to get used to being a social anomaly in a traditional South East Asian society.

As soon as 2019 came around, I vowed to make it my year and I know, everyone says “new year new me” but I didn’t want a “new” me. I wanted a better and improved version of myself. I was determined to stop feeling sorry for myself and complaining about everything, so these are some of the things I decided to improve.

Tinder. The name of the online dating platform elicits an array of opinions. If you’re like me, you used the app as a form of window shopping – checking out your local prospects in a seemingly virtual safety net. But whether you’re using it to do some shopping, looking for a hookup, or searching for “the one,” there are some solid dos and don’ts to keep in mind before you get your swipe on.

I watched as tears poured down my boyfriend’s face. During an argument, I had told him for the first time in our relationship, the awful words “I hate you.” As I absorbed the pain my words caused, I realized my own self-hatred buried deep inside. I could have kept hurting myself, but I couldn’t bear to see someone I love hurting. After some soul searching and apologies, I went to therapy for the first time in my life and was diagnosed with depression. This is my story of learning to love myself despite debilitating depression- the kind where you lay in bed all day long. Remember, everyone’s depression is unique, and these are in no ways alternatives to seeking treatment with a therapist or doctor, but these 10 tips helped me through depression.

Unfortunately, many of us will experience divorce at some point in our lives. Perhaps it will happen only a few years after your marriage. Perhaps it will happen after a decade or more. But there are steps you can take to help get through the pain and come out a stronger person.

Social Media is a wonderful thing for so many reasons; you can stay connected with friends no matter where they live, you can follow the latest trends, keep track of what Ryan Reynolds is doing at all times and share those fun holiday snaps. What it is not good for, however, is when you are going through a breakup. Breaks up are hard on all of us, especially when your significant other is part of your friendship group. And although we have to get there in our own time, we ultimately learn the only way to move on is to go cold turkey and stop all communication with them.

For the last four years of my life, I've been in a relationship. Four years, in the long run, doesn’t seem like much time but when you’re spending every moment of every day with the same person, you get tired and you get bored. Here are nine things I’ve learned about my relationship that helps keep the monotony at bay and ways to keep it alive and interesting.

I’ve had a lot of friends in my life. Some friendships were for a season, some have lasted for decades. I don’t know the precise recipe for creating a lifelong friendship, but I know it’s important to figure out when the dynamic is DOA. If you hang on to a friendship for too long you can experience a bitter break-up, not unlike a romantic love gone wrong. Here are some ways I can tell it’s time to call it quits with a platonic friend.

The hardest part about a new relationship is when the initial excitement wears off and the reality of your differences creeps in. Sometimes these differences balance the two of you out and make you stronger, but sometimes they're deal breakers and can tear you apart. I’ve always been very outgoing and when I started dating someone who is an introvert and didn’t enjoy loud and crowded social situations as much as I do, I was caught off guard. It took a bit of work to figure it out if it was going to bring us closer or tear us apart.